OpenArena Name Changer
See also: Manual/Player settings and Manual/Text colors. OpenArena Name Changer (a.k.a. OANC for short) is a tool to help the user to customize his nickname in the game, including some symbols. The new name can be applied to a single mod, to some or to all your mods at the same time. It is open source (released under the GPLv2 license) and works under Microsoft Windows and Linux. It has been inspired by the old Quake 3 Name Changer tool for Quake 3: Arena, but this one has been expressly created for OpenArena. Usage * Download the program, and unpack it to a folder on your computer (you can open .7z files using 7-Zip, Winrar or other similar compression tools), take a look to the documentation (readme.txt, help.txt, changelog.txt), and launch the executable (under Windows, run "oanc.exe"). * You can manually type the "source code" of your name, or click on the different color boxes and then on the character table, to see how your signature will look like. In case of long names, it is possible to expand the program window, or you can click on the preview field to see a screen-wide popup preview. * When you are ok with your new name, you can save it to your OpenArena main configuration file only (that usually means "baseoa only"), or select to which mods you wish to apply it (multiple selection with additional "select all"/"select none" shortcut button available). Then launch OpenArena and enjoy your new name! * OpenArena Name Changer allows to manage a favorites list: save your best signatures, and switch them when you wish! Useful, for example, to switch from a nickname that includes a clan tag to one without it. Configuration When you are in the progam, you can use the "Config" button to specify the path of your main OpenArena configuration file, but OANC should be able to locate it automatically (usually you should not even need to click that "Config" button). Usually the path should be the one to your \baseoa\q3config.cfg file (including the file name and extension) inside your "homepath" (under Windows XP it should look like C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application data\OpenArena\baseoa\q3config.cfg, and under Windows Vista/Windows 7 it should look like C:\Users\username\Appdata\Roaming\OpenArena\baseoa\q3config.cfg); anyway you can select a different path (remember that it is possible to launch OpenArena specifying a different homepath folder using the +set fs_homepath command line parameter). If you browse the folders using the "..." button, remember that the "Application data"/"Appdata" folder is hidden and you may not see it if Windows is set to not show hidden files, anyway in the "Find OpenArena base config file" dialog window you can type %appdata% and press Enter to use a sort of shortcut to bypass that hidden folder. The configuration of OANC itself is stored inside an "oanc.ini" file usually stored inside a folder called ".oanc". Under Windows XP the folder should be C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application data\.oanc, and under Windows Vista/7 it should be C:\Users\username\Appdata\Roaming\.oanc. It is possible to check the "Save configuration to same directory as OANC" to save the configuration to the same folder of the OANC executable, if you prefer to store it there for some reason (e.g. in case the default location path contains some special characters that the program does not manage correctly). Notes * OANC supports text colors from 0 to 8, including black and orange. Remember that in OpenArena 0.8.5 black color is disabled in player names and thus is shown as white; in OA 0.8.8, black is allowed instead, but only if there is at least another character of a different color; OANC does not preview these behaviors, that may change in future versions of OA. Orange color did not exist in Q3A, and has been introduced with OpenArena 0.8.5, where it works but it is shown as black in the console - this is fixed in 0.8.8. * An online tool (that does not require to download it, but has got less features than OANC, and requires to manually put the obtained text into your OpenArena configuration) is OpenArena Name Creator (created by Cacatoes). * Other ways to change your name are using the player settings menu, using the "\name" command in command console, or manually editing your q3config.cfg files. * OpenArena Name Changer ''has been created by ''Dejan Boras (aka de_jean_777, aka dbX) and is released under the terms of the GNU GPLv2 license. Download package contains Windows and Linux executables, plus source code (one would need Lazarus and FPC in order to compile it again). * Author reports that OANC could have problems with paths containing special characters. If you experience problems that may be related to this, there is an option in the "Configuration" window that may help you, saving OANC configuration file to the same folder of the program itself (obviously, you have to install OANC to a path that does not contain such special characters) instead of to the default folder (that is specific for your user, like OpenArena does). But consider that you could also have the OpenArena configuration files (q3config.cfg) under a path with special characters, and in this case avoiding the problem would be more difficult. * OANC is an external tool, that works outside OpenArena, even if it reads and writes OA configuration files: if you want to be able switch between names "on-the-fly" (while playing the game), you have to associate "key bindings" for them (e.g. bind i "name ^1Te^2st", would later set your name to a two-colors "Test" name each time you will hit the "i" key), manually placing them in your configuration (using the command console from the game, or editing q3config.cfg files with a text editor like Notepad++). This could be useful, but pay attention to do not mess up your configuration, and remember that too much "identity-switching", under some situations, could not be seen very "polite" by other players (and using key bindings, there is the risk to change your name accidentally, simply pressing a key). External links * OpenArena Name Changer official site * Download OpenArena Name Changer * Thread about OANC on the forum See also * Manual/Player settings * Manual/Text colors * Homepath folder (where your configuration and autodownloaded files are stored) * Quake 3 Name Changer Category:Tools